When it comes to being an entrepreneur, there is often no “roadmap” or “blueprint” to get you exactly where you want to go, especially if you are just starting out. When I first began my entrepreneurial journey, I remember always trying to figure out what the “perfect” move was. I kept looking for the one thing that would make me massively successful right away. Instead, I learned that there is rarely one move that gets you where you want to be all at once. Most of the time, it’s a series of smaller steps that add up to your ultimate goal over time.

Sure, you will mess up at some point along the way, but all that matters is how you adjust and move forward. One strategy that can help you speed up the process is by learning from other more seasoned entrepreneurs and then applying those lessons to your own path.

Below are 3 key lessons that can help you put yourself in the best position to succeed as an entrepreneur:

Focus on What Actually Matters

As an entrepreneur, you are constantly bombarded by endless tasks, goals, people and problems that all seem to need attention at the same time. It is easy to feel overwhelmed. Most people will try to balance everything at once, and as a result, they rarely get anything meaningful done.

The truth is, in the grand scheme of things, most of the problems you face do not really matter as much as you think they do. There will always be an unhappy customer, employees will fail at times or the product or service that you originally created may change. That is just part of the game. All that matters in those situations is how you move forward. If you get emotional, stressed out, and upset over every problem, you will never be able to move fast enough to overcome them. Eventually, they will eat you up.

Instead, you have to have the mindset of expecting things to go wrong. Understand that problems are inevitable and the faster you can identify the ones that matter, the faster you will be able to move forward. For instance, spending days debating a small design change in a new app is not important if you have not yet determined if there is a product/market fit first.

In other words, if you do not know if there is demand for what you are building, small design issues on the product itself should not be what you focus on. No successful entrepreneur got to where they are because they solved every little problem that they were faced with. They were just able to solve enough of the problems that mattered most in the long-run.

“Problems are not stop signs; they are guidelines.” – Robert Schuller

Learn to be Self-Aware

You have to know yourself before you can be successful. Time is money and speed does matter, but making sure your business aligns with who you are trumps everything. Building a business around something you do not enjoy or are not good at is a losing battle no matter how fast you move.

As an entrepreneur especially, it is critical to know what you are passionate about. What would you actually like to do if you could do it all day? What are you best at? When you are able to understand those things and can combine them into something other people value, that is what makes you unstoppable.

This is not about loving what you do so it “doesn’t feel like work,” it is about loving what you do so you have the will to push past every obstacle that comes your way. Loving what you do makes the business worth it to you even when every external voice is telling you to stop. If you do not love it, you will eventually burn out. Plus, you will have wasted a lot of time going through the motions of doing something you resent, instead of building an empire based on something you love.

Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

Comparing yourself to anyone else is a complete waste of time, but we have all done it at some point in our lives. You think you should have that car or have received that funding or deserve that house. There’s nothing wrong with admiring a nice car or beautiful house, but comparing your life to someone else’s takes energy away from your own goals and only slows you down.

When you are just starting out, your time and energy are your biggest assets. Spending them looking at what other people have is wasting resources that you could be using to build your own dreams. That is why it’s important to understand what you want in life. Are you looking for short-term gains or long-term wealth? Do you want to have a job or own a business?

There is no right or wrong answer, it just comes down to who you are as a person. Once you figure out what you want, you have to be laser focused on whatever will get you there. Odds are, very few people in the world will want the same things as you, therefore, comparing yourself to them is useless. It wastes time and energy, creates distractions, and causes far more problems than solutions.

“The only person you should try to be better than is who you were yesterday.”

Wrapping Up

The specific tactics to be successful are different in every business. The principles of successful entrepreneurs, however, are very similar across the board. You have to be able to recognize what matters and what doesn’t. You have to know yourself and understand what you are best at in life.

Knowing yourself will allow you to build a sustainable business that is aligned with who you are. Plus, it will also help you figure out what positions you need to hire for first to compensate for your weaknesses.

Most of all, you have to avoid comparing yourself to anyone else no matter how green the grass on the other side looks. Doing so is easy but is also detrimental to your own success. Time is our biggest asset. It’s a finite resource that we can never get more of thus the more time you spend envying other people the less you will have to build what you want in life.

I will admit, these principles are not always easy to apply. When it comes down to it, you will still make mistakes along the way. That is just part of human nature. Nonetheless, if you can start understanding these principles now, you will put yourself in a much stronger position to succeed and have a better chance of living life on your terms in the future.

Sam Boghigian is a long-time businessman, who started his first company at 11 years old. He is also a dedicated bodybuilder who believes being both mentally and physically fit translates into being successful in many other aspects of life, especially business.

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